This invention relates to an improved Venetian blind. More particularly the invention is directed to an improved headrail, bottom rail and end caps therefor all resulting in a blind that minimizes the transmission of light or presence of sight lines from the blind exterior into the room in the blind tilted closed condition.
As seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,487,243 Venetian blinds generally comprise a headrail, a series of narrow slats hanging therefrom on string-like ladder assemblies, a window sill-engaging bottom rail, wand-operated means for tilting the slats and a lift cord mechanism for raising and lowering the slats and bottom rail. While the main purpose of the Venetian blind is to control and limit the light and sun entering a room window, the prior art blinds do allow a fair modicum of unwanted light to pass through the blind even in the blind tilted close position. Further, these light passages may give rise to sight lines through the blind offering peep-through passages. The light and sight passages may be present under the bottom rail (U.S. Pat. No. 2,860,699), in the spacing between a window frame and a bottom rail cap (U.S. Pat. No. 4,719,955), between the bottom of a headrail and the top edge of the top slat in a closed condition (U.S. Pat. No. 2,659,430), around the headrail end caps (U.S. Pat. No. 3,727,665), around draw cord clip apertures at the slat ends (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,413,464 and 2,868,283) and through the vertically aligned draw cord apertures of each slat at two, three or more spaced vertical ladder positions along the slats (FIG. 1 prior art of the related application, Ser. No. 07/395,036).
One of the additional problems of Venetian blinds is the lateral movement of the blinds when lowering and raising and when moved by the wind or by other air or force action. This movement not only is noisy, lets in additional light but also can clip and abrade a window-surround painted or other surface. This problem has been addressed in part by providing resilient caps on the ends of the bottom rail with short bumper legs extending from the caps (U.S. Pat. No. 2,860,699) or anti-rattling slat end resilient caps (U.S. Pat. No. 2,498,909).
In contradistinction to the above prior art the present invention results in a blind which is highly blacked-out in a tilted closed position and is essentially non-rattling. The blind may be economically made and result in a flush and clean construction.